RAMESHWAR BROOTA | Self

Acquired directly from the artist at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, circa 1984

R. Karode, Rameshwar Broota: Interrogating the Male Body, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, 2015, illustration pp. 37, 225 

By 1967 at the young age of 26, Rameshwar Broota was leading the Triveni Art Department in Delhi, after a stint of teaching at the Jamia Millia Islamia Higher Secondary School, Sarada Ukil Centre and his alma mater, the College of Art in Delhi. Typical of fine art education, one of the first genres that he attempted was portraiture. ‘Broota had excelled in portraiture right from his college days. He had painted a galaxy of portraits of self , friends and family, some in thick impasto and spontaneous brushwork, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s intense self-portraits, and others in which the strokes are more blended and subdued.’ (R. Karode, ‘Visions of Interiority: Interrogating the Male Body,’ Rameshwar Broota, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, 2015, p. 21)

Broota’s self-portraits are among his earliest works and to some extent the rarest in his entire oeuvre spanning five decades. Karode has theorised ‘I would like to propose that it was the first breakpoint in Broota’s artistic career in the late 1960s, when he was convinced, that the ‘body’, the missing element in his portraits was to become his primary metaphor to reflect, express and process his resolved (and unresolved) understanding about human existence. In matter and spirit, the body has since acquired a pivotal presence and position in Broota’s art practice. In my observations based on the substantial corpus of his monochromatic works, the male body is repeatedly framed without the face. The portrait, thus to a great extent, went missing from his oeuvre.' (ibid.) The current lot titled Self is a rare gem, the first self-portrait of the artist to come up for sale in the open market.